Make Change Happen: Remember the Essence
Leaders, Might be you have already heard a lot of the necessity of communications during times of organizational change or - might be not. There is tons of literature on change communication out in the market, and in this article you will find an executive summary for when there is a situation that requires you as the CEO or member of the senior leadership team to communicate changes in your company. Source: Pixabay/ CC0 Publice Licence: User Alexas_Fotos When we talk about change communications in an organization, we focus on unexpected and involuntary changes for the company and/or for individuals, which very often result in unpleasant and painful consequences. Organizational change is very often linked to restructuring of the firm, a merger, a downsizing or move of a business unit. On rare occasions, communicating change is about sharing hooray messages, but very often relaying though messages in [...]
Feedback with Impact
Leaders, Sometimes it’s hard to tell or to hear the truth. It is one of the biggest fears of human beings to be judged by others. I am sure you are aware of that and have an idea as to how people in your remit typically respond to feedback. Those common reactions to constructive feedback probably sound very familiar: Source: Fotolia User: freshidea Hostility, resistance, or denial – Employees attack your credibility and the facts in the performance review. They do not acknowledge the issue, deny that the incidents took place, or downplay the impact of their actions. Indifference – Employees react to the feedback in an apathetic manner, and do not fully commit to doing things differently. Lack of confidence, or self-pity – Employees are uncertain in their abilities to succeed or are risk-averse. Responsibility skirting – Employees may acknowledge the negative feedback but may play [...]
The Key Ingredient for Communicating Change
Leaders, How can you maintain composure and empower your staff during a seemingly endless transition period? How can you reassure your employees that despite the turmoil, your company’s strategy and mission remain clear? How can you motivate your staff to embrace change and add new skills to tweak the way they perform? The simple answer: By having presence. Photo Credit: Otmar Brettschneider Showing up as a leader is about demonstrating presence, and presence is fundamentally about confidence; not the confidence you have in yourself, but the confidence you inspire in others so they are willing to follow where you are leading. Presence may be difficult to define, but we all know it when we see it. Presence is not an all-or-nothing commodity. Rather consider it a continuum, with your physical attributes, natural talents, communication skills, and character traits plotted along the way somewhere from one end to [...]
Five Crucial Steps to Your Change Communication Strategy
Leaders, My little niece and I had a chat about the impact of change recently. She said: “You know, what makes change so hard for me is that I get used to things and attached to people so fast and intensely; that makes letting go almost impossible.” I was flabbergasted about her wise and insightful statement. “I totally understand, sweetheart. It is hard. What would help you make the leap of faith?”, I asked her curiously. “I need to know more about the new situation so that I can sense what it will be like.” “Great. And what else would be helpful for you?”, I kept inquiring. “It would be cool to have some support along the way, just in case.” My niece is a brave girl and a tough cookie as you can tell from this conversation. What can we learn from it? Well, obviously I have an idea. [...]
Managing a Virtual Team
Leaders, Working in virtual teams is one key challenge in the digitization of companies today, both for employees and leaders alike. You may have a team that is spread over different cities, regions or even different countries. How can you ensure that this team will achieve the best results and satisfy your customers’ requirements at its best? This article will give an overview of challenges you as a virtual team leader face, and some tips as to how you get your leadership approach right. The good news is, if you manage your virtual team right, it can even outperform teams that share the same office space, according to the Aon consulting report. Effects of Distance As the Harvard Business Review (HBR) reports, distance is the greatest challenge in managing a virtual team. There are different kinds of distances, like geographic, temporal, cultural or linguistic. Mark Mortensen, an associate professor of Organizational [...]
How Effective Is Your Team?
I have a dream. Wouldn’t it be great if we all worked in teams that have no politics nor dysfunctions so that we can get our work done and focus on the desired results? Please be aware: If you want to make teams effective, it does require high levels of courage and discipline. Teamwork is the ultimate competitive advantage in today’s business world. Improving teamwork is not only a critical leadership endeavor, it also reduces the degree of stress and dissatisfaction of the people in organizations, which – if not addressed – can cost the company an extensive amount of money. How can you actually develop a team to be cohesive and operate functionally? What does it take to get to that state? While I was chewing on these questions, I discovered the book „The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni. The greatest take-away for me is that [...]